1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to telecommunication systems. More particularly, the invention relates to a telephone system facilitating personalized announcements during the pre-answer period of a telephone call.
2. Description of Prior Art
Personalized announcements in a telephone system in support of company branded services, products and information enable customers to have the benefit of promotional offers of the company or others; anticipated service features or changes; assurance of company service as provider and to be more in touch with the company for a better customer-company relationship. Personalized announcements should be limited in number, repetition, time, and in some cases, geography to prevent customer aggravation and loss of harmony in the customer-company relationship. From an operating standpoint, installation of personalized announcements in the system should be compatible with system hardware and software, flexible to changes, reliable and not unduly delay call flow.
Prior art related to telephone systems incorporating messages accompanying call flow is as follows:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,382, issued Mar. 7, 1989, discloses a typical telecommunications system for applying messages or data to a customer line of calling parties during the xe2x80x9cring backxe2x80x9d period of telephone call set-up. The messages are preferably applied between successive xe2x80x9cring backxe2x80x9d tones during the xe2x80x9cring backxe2x80x9d period, and then terminated when the called party answers the call. Advertising messages, civic or company announcements, political messages, informational messages or other data can be transmitted on the telephone line during what is otherwise essentially an unused time when the line is already tied up.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,850,007 issued Jul. 18, 1989, discloses a telephone system for providing economical telephone toll service in which a telephone customer selects the economical service by sending an appropriate signal and then dialing his Directory Assistance call or other telephone toll call. The caller""s options are determined by the system and typically before signalling for the call is commenced, a recorded announcement of an oral or visual nature is connected to the customer line. The announcement consists of at least one advertisement. After the advertising announcement is completed, the toll car and/or Directory Assistance call is processed as usual but at a reduced rate charged or with automatic credit being given to the customer account for receiving the advertisement.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,321,740 issued Jun. 14, 1994, discloses a telephone marketing system. A calling party places a telephone call to a second party and a switch associated with the network signalling system determines the xe2x80x9cbusy/idlexe2x80x9d status of the called parties. In place of the usual xe2x80x9cring backxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cbusyxe2x80x9d signal, an announcement indicates to the calling party the status of the second telephone and a series of announcements are played for a predetermined period of time. During the announcements, the system continues to determine the status of the telephone line of the called party. The announcements are played until the call is completed or abandoned.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,448,625 issued Sep. 5, 1995, discloses a method and apparatus for routing a telephone call through a telephone network from a caller to a called party via an advertising service apparatus that operates in two modes successively. In one mode, the parties are in communication with each other and ads are selected from storage during that mode, the ads being impressed on one or both of the parties during a different mode. The modes may alternate between message intervals whose durations are determined by ad message length and communication intervals whose length is determined by a xe2x80x9ctalking timexe2x80x9d timer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,600,710 issued Feb. 4, 1997, discloses a method for playing a recorded message to a caller when a called line is busy without actual connection of a call. The call is placed in a queue during the xe2x80x9cbusyxe2x80x9d period. The call is then connected to an intelligent peripheral such as a service node that plays a recorded message of the called party""s choice. When the called party line becomes idle, the call chosen from the established queue is then connected to it based upon a prioritization system established by the called party.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,652,784 issued Jul. 29, 1997, discloses a telephone advertising service which provides a short advertising message as a telephone call is initiated. The advertising message is stopped after a predetermined run time and an invitation to dial tone is added. The advertising message is stopped when the customer starts to dial a number. The method provides the advertising messages in lieu of invitation to dial tones. Differentiated customers are individually provided with distinct advertising messages. Customers are distinguished by characteristics of exchange numbers, monthly call volume, call type, geographical location, and time of day.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,333,186 issued Jul. 26, 1994, discloses a sponsored-call service feature which enables callers to obtain network-provided telephone services, toll free or at a subsidized rate. The sponsored service permits a third party sponsor to convey commercial messages to and interact with a caller prior to the caller""s access to the network""s services. After the callers interaction with the sponsor, the network gives the caller a sponsored-specified restricted access to the network provided services.
None of the prior art discloses a telephone system and method for selectively transmitting personalized announcements to a calling party during the pre-answer period after determining the type of announcement and call set up are appropriate and that the announcement has not reached a daily or total announcement limit for the calling party while enabling the announcement to be terminated by the calling party at any time or if the telephone line is busy or otherwise inoperative.
A system and method provide Personalized Announcements (PAs) during post dial delay of domestic and/or international calls to customers provisioned to receive such announcements through an adjunct processor to a network switch using the customer""s Automatic Number Identification (ANI). The PAs may be informational, promotional or service announcements. Each provisioned ANI is associated with a cell stored in the adjunct processor, the cell containing a number of parameters defining call processing for PAs in tabular form. The cell parameters for each PA includes announcement number; daily announcement counter; call flow bits; enable date; call type; cell row counter; applicable region, and expiration date, etc. The call flow bit is of two types. A PD call flow bit plays the PA during the time the adjunct processor tries to complete the call and before the call is answered. A PT call flow bit plays the PA during post dial delay and timed delay of the call. Each ANI includes parameters associated with its assigned cell. The ANI parameters include a an ANI counter and a Daily counter. The ANI counter determines when the cell row counter has maxed out and the PA should no longer be played to the customer. The Daily counter determines when the PA has reached the daily limit and should not be further played for that day. When a provisioned customer originates a call, an originating switch queries a Universal Subscriber Data Structure (USDS) which determines if the call requires processing by the adjunct processor, and if so, routes the call to the adjunct. Based on the ANI, ANI counter, etc., the adjunct determines if the call is PA eligible from the PAs listed in the ANI cell. If eligible and the call bit is set to PD, the adjunct sets up the called leg to the dialed number and then plays the PA during the post dial delay and pre-answer. If the flow call bit is set to PT, the adjunct sets and activates a timer before playing the PA and sets up the outgoing calling leg to the dialed number. If at any time during the call processing the call is answered or the customer presses the # button, the adjunct stops the PA and merges the calling and called legs, after which the adjunct updates the cell counters.